Students’ Speak: What if you don’t meet your SNAP/XAT/IIFT score?

By: Abdullah Salman M

If you are taking a break, then it is better to do some online certification courses like Google AdWords, Google Analytics etc to boost your CV.

It’s the entrance exam season. Starting with Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) exam held on December 1, the season will be followed by Symbiosis National Aptitude Test (SNAP) on December 15 and ending with Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT) on January 5.

Although all the candidates must have and will be giving their best in the exams, there could be some who are not satisfied with their score. Here’s are some tips for such students.

What if my IIFT score doesn’t meet my expectation?

IIFT has a total of 369 seats in their campus - 220 in the Delhi campus and 140 seats in the Kolkata campus. Some percentage of seats are for reserved candidates and few more minority and special categories.

“Participation is more important than Winning”
If you don’t get the desired cutoff or B-School you are wanting to. Don’t let down yourself as success and failure are a part of our life. In this scenario, you have two options, either you take the best B-School as per your cutoff or wait for another year and do a lot of hard work.

You have other good B-schools and non-CAT exams such as SNAP, XAT, NMAT, MH-CET, MAT, CMAT and also your state government respective management exams. The main thing is don’t sit idle instead fight till the end until you get your goal. There is not much difference in the non-CAT exams as only slight addition or deletion of a few topics such as abstracts, GK, descriptive writing would be there which you can prepare easily with little practice.

Do rigorous preparation with utmost dedication and analysis of several mock tests and previous year test papers. Refer Shiksha.com and the official college website for ranking, placements and admission FAQs for a better idea about the college and their admission process. If required also talk to the college current students, alumni or any faculty who would help you in adding some in-depth insights about the college and tips to crack the admission process as this would be an added advantage for you.

What if my SNAP score doesn’t meet my expectation?

Similar to that of IIFT, I would recommend you to accept failure and overcome it as soon as possible. Quickly start preparing for other management exams such as XAT, NMAT, MH-CET, MAT, CMAT and also your state government respective management exams. As you are very well versed with all the topics, you just need to brush up for topics and work on your strength and weakness. You will definitely get good marks.The exam pattern is almost similar for all the management exams and you just need to work extra to make your speed and accuracy better.

What if my XAT score doesn’t meet my expectation?

Finally, when most of the major exams are over, these are some exams which you could take MH-CET, MAT, CMAT and also your state government’s respective management exams. I would recommend personally even after XAT score is not been met, then take a year gap and work even harder. As this will bring highly fruitful results with a condition that you will crack it in the upcoming year for sure. Or else, you could take any of the upcoming management exams to post XAT and join a descent B-School.

If you are planning to take a break for a year then my suggestion would be to do some certifications with regards to Digital Marketing as lots of free certifications are available online such as Google AdWords, Google Analytics, and so many other platforms offering free certifications. Along with Marketing certifications, you could also get for finance, operations, Analytics and HR based certifications, too. This will boost your CV while you sit for Management PI after clearing management exams and let them know you took a year break but learnt other things to boost your CV.

About the Author:

Abdullah Salman M. is currently pursuing an MBA in General Management from TSM, Madurai. He has 15 months of work experience as a Network Engineer. He hails from Vellore, Tamil Nadu and has previously completed BE (ECE), from Anna University, Chennai.